Udall stops short of backing Pinon Canyon cutoff

From the Pueblo Chieftain:

Colorado Sen. Mark Udall repeated his complaint Tuesday that the Army has still failed to justify its request to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, but the freshman Democrat stopped short of saying he would help block any funding for the Army's effort to purchase another 100,000 acres just south of the training site. The Las Animas County commissioners gave unanimous support this morning to a resolution asking Congress to block any expansion whether the Army can find a willing seller or not. That is tougher language than opponents of the expansion have used in the past. The 238,000-acre training site northeast of Trinidad is entirely within the Las Animas County and adding another 100,000 acres would shrink the county's tax base further. Udall said he hadn't seen the commissioners' latest resolution but said the recent Government Accountability Office studies of the expansion left many questions unanswered, such as how often the Army uses the current Pinon Canyon site and why it was willing to shave its land acquisition plan from 414,000 acres to just 100,000 acres.